Lexware Office vs Xero

Lexware Office

SKR03 and SKR04 are both there, I can switch charts and existing bookings migrate automatically, and the monthly lock with a timestamped protocol gives me a real period close. But I found no public information on manual journals, opening balances, cost centres or accruals — and the business year is fixed to the calendar year with the calendar month as the booking period. A solid mid-level ledger, none of the accountant's extras shown.

Xero

The evidence evidences invoicing, bill entry and reconciliation, but not one word about a double-entry ledger, SKR03/SKR04, journals, opening balances or a period close — for German books that's the entire engine missing. I'd be buying an invoicing app with an invisible ledger underneath.

Lexware Office

Postings genuinely become unalterable: the lock is automatic and GoBD-conform each month, logged with execution timestamps, and submitting the VAT advance return fixes that period's bookings too. What's missing for the audit-minded is everything around it — I found no public information on a Verfahrensdokumentation template, a stated retention period, an auditor's data export, or corrections handled as reversals.

Xero

Across the homepage, pricing and privacy pages there is no GoBD claim, no statement that postings become unalterable, no retention period, no Verfahrensdokumentation. If the Betriebsprüfer knocks, I have nothing to hand over — that is the definition of the zero anchor.

Lexware Office

One click sends the VAT advance return to the Finanzamt with ELSTER confirmation, an automatic receipt is booked and the SEPA debit just happens — that is precisely the hour of my Sunday I want back. Cash and accrual timing, the minimum-cash rule, §13b reverse charge and Dauerfristverlängerung are all handled, but the pages themselves route destination-country tax to OSS or separate registration outside the product, and I found no public information on EÜR or balance-sheet output, the Zusammenfassende Meldung, or small-business rules. Above the middle mark, well short of the full filing year.

Xero

Nothing on VAT rates, UStVA, ELSTER, EÜR or reverse-charge anywhere in the evidence — the Sunday afternoon I want back would still end at the tax office by hand. For a German filing year this is a zero, not a weak spot.

Lexware Office

Bank accounts are connected, refreshing fetches new transactions, and every Umsatz gets matching suggestions checked in both directions against a receipt or an accounting category — but a booking only exists after I click accept, so the ledger is suggesting rather than matching itself. Receipts are linked to their postings (the VAT return lines expand to the vouchers), while I found no public information on OCR receipt capture, e-invoice formats inbound and outbound, or replacement scanning.

Xero

Auto-reconcile, bulk reconcile and Smart Document Capture suggest the money side is partly automated, which is exactly what I want on a Sunday. But there is no evidence of German bank feeds, actual OCR, matching rules, ZUGFeRD/XRechnung, or ersetzendes Scannen — promising screens, unproven evidence chain.

Lexware Office

The DATEV handover is genuinely professional: the Steuerberaterzugang export builds two coordinated ZIP files that link booking to receipt image automatically after import into DATEV Kanzlei Rechnungswesen, DATEVconnect online transfers in the background via the Buchungsdatenservice, and the adviser seat costs nothing. But the access cannot be scoped — the Kanzlei sees everything including my connected bank accounts — with only a last-login visible, no audit of what they changed, and nothing coming back the other way. Best-in-class one-way export, one-sided collaboration.

Xero

A quarter-million accountants and bookkeepers use Xero, so my Steuerberater might get a login — but the evidence shows no DATEV export, no postings export, no German year-end handoff at all. The handover would be PDFs and screenshots, which is exactly what I refuse to pay for.

Lexware Office

The vendor is German through and through per the provenance line, and a manual export of receipts and booking data still works after cancellation, which is a real exit door. Beyond that I found no public information: nothing on hosting location, nothing on subprocessors, nothing confirming the contracting entity, and the captured privacy pages only link onward to separate statements rather than stating any of it. An absent subprocessor list lands this in the low band for me, not the floor.

Xero

New Zealand group entity, hosting stated only as 'Global (USD)', subprocessors unnamed, with my ten-year German retention obligation hanging over all of it; a SOC 2 report on request is an American control audit, not European hosting. The books would live where I cannot compel them to be produced.

Lexware Office

I found no public information on pricing at all — no tier, no monthly figure, no booking or document limits, not even a hint of what an adviser seat or an extra bank account costs, so no annual invoice can be computed from what is published. As the person who checks the invoice against the headline, that is the bottom.

Xero

Tier prices with promo periods, invoice and bill limits, two priced add-ons, one-month cancellation and a free trial are all public — more honest than most. But VAT treatment, extra users and any adviser seat are unstated, and 'Global (USD)' means my euro invoice still wobbles with the exchange rate.